The Jester of Apocalypse
Chapter 3: Hell (1)

There was a way to tell how much time had passed when one fell asleep. Not down to an hour, but it was possible to feel it. The mind might just be extrapolating how much time passed based on how high the sun was or the individual’s sleeping habits.

When Neave opened his eyes, he felt like an eternity had passed since he died. It wasn’t like falling asleep. It didn’t resemble passing out. There was an element of oblivion that severed his existence. Now he had arrived at a place he could only describe in a single word.

Hell.

When he finally opened his eyes, he was standing upright. He felt relatively well rested. There was no fatigue, no muscular pain, no hunger, and no thirst. He still felt the vague aches his body had suffered from all the beatings, but it was nothing unusual. Neave, however, noticed none of this. The only thing he felt was panic.

And despair.

Gray, smoggy clouds clouded the sky with a red, backlit by an ominous red glow. The ground was rusty red, with pools of noxious liquids scattered here and there. In the distance, there were impossibly tall, jagged mountains. There was no growth, only obsidian bushes with sharp, twisted branches—the air stank of sulfur, blood, and smoke.

And rot.

Slowly shambling toward him was a creature. A vaguely humanoid creature with gray, rough skin, no eyes, and a large, toothy mouth. Neave had read many books covering mythological subjects, and only one creature that fit the description.

A demon.

Neave ran. He sprinted as fast as he could away from the thing chasing him. As he dashed, he dodged pools of blood, rifts in the ground, abysses with jagged spikes protruding the walls with green, glowing gasses filling their depths.

He looked back constantly. He was putting the demon further behind him. Neave neither relented nor slowed down. Instead, he constantly darted his eyes over the environment, looking for whatever other monstrosities might show up.

But there was nothing.

The adrenaline wore off at a certain point, and he collapsed onto the putrid, dusty soil on a small hill. He gasped for breath, choked on the toxic dust, and took a second to calm down. The demon was far out of sight at this point. There seemed to be nothing else chasing him.

For now.

The sense of despair deepened as he looked around the hellscape.

No matter what direction, all he saw were the endless, rolling hills jagged with spiky stone and obsidian growth. The only notable landmarks made the feelings of misery worse.

Mountains so tall they disappeared into the smoky atmosphere. Pools and lakes of blood, pus, acid, and black ooze. Massive rifts into shimmering, glowing abysses filled with spikes, gas, or pure darkness.

He was thirsty. Neave felt parched from the dry air. There was no water anywhere in sight. His desperation drove him to lick the sweat off his arms. He searched around his robes and didn’t find the food pills either. Had he dropped them?

Neave had no idea where to begin. What to do from here? Where to go? He sat there frozen, desperately searching for a plan; for any shred of hope he could latch on to.

This place had no sense of time. Nothing but thirst and exhaustion could even begin to clue Neave in about how long he had been here.

Just as he thought he couldn’t get any more desperate, he noticed a small black dot moving toward him. The creature was catching up.

Neave wanted to cry, but no water could wet his eyes. They hurt as he whimpered and got up.

He ran in the other direction. Neave stumbled into pools of blood and tripped over the sharp shrubbery, cutting his legs. He bled precious drops and felt them dripping down, mixing with the putrid blood.

Several times, he just barely avoided dropping into pits of certain death.

He couldn't tell if he'd been running for hours or days.

And the thirst was driving him insane.

He felt his body stiffening. His eyes were so dehydrated his vision blurred. It was becoming impossible to breathe. The desperation finally got the better of him, and he took a small sip from a pool of blood. It tasted of despair, rot, and death. He got up and walked. His footsteps slowed. He dragged himself forward, losing all feeling, first in his arms, then his legs, and finally, his stomach.

Neave gagged. He raised his shaky hand and touched the near-black blood dripping from his mouth.

Was it his blood? Or the blood he drank?

Or was it both?

It doesn’t matter anyway.

He thought as he fell over face-first to the ground.

Dead.

When he finally opened his eyes, he was standing upright. He felt relatively well rested. There was no fatigue, no muscular pain, no hunger, and no thirst. He still felt the vague aches his body had suffered from all the beatings, but it was nothing unusual. Neave, however, noticed none of this. The only thing he felt was panic.

After all, he was back in the beginning. The demon slowly stumbled towards him. Tears ran down his face. He was rehydrated. He was in one piece.

And had to go through all of that again.

Neave ran. He ran like mad, clumsily fumbling over a rock and dropping into a pit. A jagged spike ran through his head, killing him instantly..

And then he woke up. He was standing in the same place again. He felt madness creep into his mind, threatening to tear his soul into pieces. And then, yet again, he started running. He ran and ran as far as he could until he slipped off a rock and broke his neck. He didn’t die instantly but sat there, crumpled and broken, as his life slowly drained from his eyes.

And then woke up again. Ran. Fell into a pool of acid. Died.

And then woke up again. Ran. Then he died from thirst.

And then woke up again. Ran. Fell into a pit of poisonous gas. Died.

And then woke up again. Ran. The skies broke, and it started raining black ooze. It solidified on his skin, and he suffocated, unable to move or breathe. He died.

Drowned in a river of blood.

Impaled on obsidian thorns.

Melted by acid rain.

Time and time again, he woke up at the same start, ran in a random direction, and found nothing but new ways to die. But he went back every time. And ran. He explored every bit of land he could reach before dying.

After some time, he no longer fell into pits. He no longer tripped or stumbled into spiky bushes of death. He realized that when he died, the same events happened in the same order, so he knew where it would rain blood, acid, tar, or pus and avoided those places. But he could not outrun exhaustion or thirst.

He looked into his robes. The bottle of food pills wasn’t there even at the start.

His desperation clawed at him. He felt his misery deepening endlessly as the agony threatened to tear him apart. He ran at the demon and swung at it in his desperation. His tantrum punches were like soft taps on the demon’s tough flesh. It pulled its arm back and clawed his chest out.

Neave died from the injury, but in his stubbornness, he ran at the demon again.

It grabbed his head.

“No… Please…”

Its claws sank into Neave’s skull, and the demon violently pulled his head off.

Neave looked at the demon again, shaking and stepping back in terror. He vividly remembered the feeling of his spine being pulled out of his back, and he screamed.

He sprinted away again, finding the same deaths lurking behind every corner. The demon was an ever-present threat stalking him in the distance, but it could only move so quickly. Eventually, he ran slower, so he could make it further before the exhaustion and thirst caught up. Then he walked instead, slowly, in every direction. He had even more time like this and was still faster than the demon.

So he walked, now reaching further and discovering more. Eventually, the discoveries dried up. The same deaths repeated enough times to become… Dull.

The never-ending torrent of suffering eventually subsided. The constant feeling of terror and dread got weaker and weaker as Neave habituated.

So he slowed down.

He slowed down until he was walking barely faster than the demon.

Then he slowed down until the demon was walking faster than he was.

The demon slashed at his back with sharp claws, tearing Neave’s back open. Neave yelped. The demon tore him apart, and he perished.

He appeared before the demon again, taking a few steps back purely out of habit. The demon grabbed his neck and bit his head off.

Once he appeared before the demon again, he stood and shivered as the last vestiges of his motivation escaped him. The demon thrust its claws into his heart. Sᴇaʀᴄh the NøvᴇlFirᴇ(.)nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of nøvels early and in the highest quality.

When he finally opened his eyes again, he was standing upright. He felt relatively well rested. There was no fatigue, no muscular pain, no hunger, and no thirst. He still felt the vague aches his body had suffered from all the beatings, but it was nothing unusual. Neave, however, noticed none of this. Not the demon walking towards him either. Not his impending doom.

The doomsday pendulum of perpetual motion completed another swing, and the reaper smiled, running laps around him.

Neave just stood there. He stood as the demon tore him apart. But he felt not the claws sinking into his flesh, not the teeth biting into his skin.

When he finally opened his eyes…

He no longer felt anything at all.

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